Aretha is re­tir­ing

Singer plans one more album

Aretha Franklin is plan­ning to re­tire this year, she told Detroit TV sta­tion WDIV Lo­cal 4, the city’s NBC af­fil­i­ate. The singer says she will make one more album, with sev­eral tracks pro­duced by Ste­vie Won­der, and will oth­er­wise limit her­self to “some se­lect things, many one a month, for six months out of the year” as she de­votes more time to her grand­chil­dren. She also says 2017 will be her “last year in con­cert.”

“This will be my last year,“Franklin said. “I will be record­ing, but this will be my last year in con­cert. This is it.“

On Thurs­day, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Franklin con­firmed her re­marks made to WDIV.

Franklin, whose many hits in­clude “Re­spect” and “Think,” added that she did not want to do “just noth­ing.” But she said that she is oth­er­wise “very sat­is­fied” with her ca­reer and is ready to step back. She has had health prob­lems in re­cent years, in­clud­ing surgery in 2010 for undis­closed rea­sons that left many fear­ing her life was in dan­ger.

“I feel very, very en­riched and sat­is­fied with re­spect to where my ca­reer came from, and where it is now,” Franklin said.

But she hasn’t con­vinced long­time friend Clive Davis, who ex­ec­u­tive pro­duced many of her al­bums.

“I don’t be­lieve her,” Davis said in an in­ter­view Thurs­day while pro­mot­ing his an­nual pre-Grammy Awards party in Bev­erly Hills, Cal­i­for­nia.

“I think that what she might have meant was that she doesn’t plan an ex­ten­sive tour - still not fly­ing and still trav­el­ling by bus, it’s just hard to stay on that bus,” the mu­sic mogul said. “Aretha is still mag­i­cal in per­son and still has the God-given voice that she has. I don’t be­lieve that she’s re­tir­ing. I just be­lieve that she’s cut­ting back, ju­di­ciously.”